A kinder tomorrow..!

AS I hear about girl stalking, my heart is filled with shame, about an India were girls are not safe anymore: It was somewhere close to midnight that I decided to drive down the road for an ice cream.
I found the roads empty, but what was my surprise to see that under each lamppost, along the pavement, children sat, gazing with absolute concentration at the study books on their laps.
I watched a little girl, may be twelve or thirteen, and on her face lit by the weak rays of the overhead street light, was a look of single minded intentness and deep concentration.
She was not bothered by the sound of my car or the other traffic on the road, nor did the honking and the beeping that broke the silence of the night perturb her in the least. Her eyes were focused on her book, and there was no doubt that her mind was on the subject matter therein.
But ever so often I watched her give a backward glance, and I realised that, that was where her home was. She sat in a public place, bearing the brunt of public stares, some curious, some inquiring, and some inquisitive, some prying and some plain snoopy, but for her, knowing that home was a few feet away, made her immune to the public gaze.
And as I watched this little girl, my mind went to this country of mine. A country where intellectuals fight verbal duels and wars of words, where rational thinking is used to profoundly explain idiotic and inane thoughts, and where writers focus on issues which are really non-issues. When all along we should be looking after these children, so busy gathering knowledge under dim lights that are thrown so stingily in their direction.
We forget our children when we fight so intently on whether a masjid or mandir is to be built on a particular spot. Would a God above, mind, if that same money is spent to see that these our next generation are given the basic requirements to garner some learning and education?
And armed with that bit of wisdom and kno wledge, realise how foolish their fathers were to fight over whose God is bigger!!
The ills that plague this country are legion, but if we could focus on just one area, and that to give the next generation a better tomorrow, then we will find it easier to bury our differences today. The little girl closed her book and yawned as she looked dreamily into the distance. I hoped that like me, she was also dreaming of a better tomorrow. A tomorrow which would be kinder to her..!
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